Ohio State men’s basketball: Top recruit to join brother

Mickey Mitchell left home in Plano, Texas, last weekend to spend the week in Columbus with his older brother Mike, a freshman linebacker on the Ohio State football team.

Asked yesterday when his younger son, a high-school junior, will be returning, Ken Mitchell laughed and said, “I don’t think he is.”

The 6-foot-8, 250-pound Mitchell, one of the top-rated forwards in the basketball recruiting class of 2015, may have two years of high school left, but he already knows where he’s going to college.

He called his father yesterday afternoon to tell him he had decided to make a commitment to Ohio State coach Thad Matta, which he did a short time later.

Ken Mitchell said he had “no idea” it would happen so fast.

“He went up there to visit for basketball and say ‘hey’ to Mike. I don’t think there was any thought about committing,” Ken said. “But I think just the legend of Ohio State, being in the middle of it . . . he saw just how exciting it was.

“He loves the Ohio State coaching staff, and he got to hang with the players and play ball with them. They asked him if he was coming in next year and he told them, ‘No, I’m just a junior.’”

Mitchell was the second 2015 recruit in 10 days to pledge to Ohio State. Point guard A.J. Harris of Dayton Dunbar committed on Aug. 12.

Coaches are after several other elite recruits in the class, including Ohioans Carlton Bragg and Luke Kennard, and already have corralled a 2014 class ranked second-best in the nation.

“He said this is a situation where he’ll have to work hard and earn it but he could be a part of something greater than himself. I think that was attractive to him,” Ken Mitchell said. “I think he also hit it off with the players. And I’m sure Mike was in his ear.”

Mitchell suffered a torn knee ligament playing football last season and missed his school and AAU basketball seasons, but his father said he has been fully cleared to play now.